Car Question......
My oxygen sensor is hanging from the bottom of my car and I am still driving it. How bad is this for my car and can it cause any other damage. The car is really loud and the check engine light it on, but it still does drive. I cant get it fixed till saturday. If there anything I can do temporarily. I climber under there and can figure out where the damn thing fell out of. Also I now understand why women dont repair cars. There is not much room for boobs under there

___________________
Electronic Night Life
<3

quote:

Originally posted by EyesOfExtasy Also I now understand why women dont repair cars. There is not much room for boobs under there

LOL!!

ontopic: I know fuck all about cars.

___________________

i like it like i like too much sugar.

how the hell do you know its an oxygen sensor???


plus where did it pop out of? I think there is one that runs into your catalytic convertor, and one in your engine block....


if its a 4 cyllinder then they are kind close together. so it could be hard to tell. but what I usually do is get underneath and see how the wire is.....gah this is tough to explain.


basically the plug has been there for so long that it kinda hardens in the right position, so if you move it around by where it looks like it shoudl go, you will find the right place to plug it in.




is that specific enough for you :-P




and you won't die if it not in the catalytic....although your car may run like shit if its not in th eengine.......






btw, I haven't looked at a car engine in over 1 year.....so I am probably wrong...

quote:

Originally posted by Boomer187 how the hell do you know its an oxygen sensor??? plus where did it pop out of? I think there is one that runs into your catalytic convertor, and one in your engine block.... if its a 4 cyllinder then they are kind close together. so it could be hard to tell. but what I usually do is get underneath and see how the wire is.....gah this is tough to explain. basically the plug has been there for so long that it kinda hardens in the right position, so if you move it around by where it looks like it shoudl go, you will find the right place to plug it in. is that specific enough for you :-P and you won't die if it not in the catalytic....although your car may run like shit if its not in th eengine....... btw, I haven't looked at a car engine in over 1 year.....so I am probably wrong...

I know its the oxygen sensor because I do know a bit about cars. The check engine light was on long before the sensor fell out. Its is hanging from the middle center of the bottom of the car a bit away from the muffler line. It is a 4 cylinder. The car is running like shit and its sounds like it has one of those fireball mufflers on it but its doesnt.

___________________
Electronic Night Life
<3

First off, don't bring it to a shop to fix if it is the O2 sensor. It's much cheaper picking one at your local automotive shop and doing it yourself. It's very easy to replace.

Good luck.

___________________
Every nite with my star friends, we eat caviar & drink champagne.
Sniffing in the VIP area, we talk about Frank Sinatra.
You know Frank Sinatra? He's dead.
To be famous is so nice, $uck my D!ck, Ki$$ my A$$.
In limousines we have sex, every nite with my famous friends.

jack up yer car, crawl underneath and plug it back in. hopefulyl its not damaged.


its been so long since i worked on an engine, I replaced one last year and I changed all the sensors. but I can't remember shit.

i think all your gonna do is make it run weak. if it will cause further damage......just plug it back in :P

so thats all I got.

quote:

Originally posted by xGirlx First off, don't bring it to a shop to fix if it is the O2 sensor. It's much cheaper picking one at your local automotive shop and doing it yourself. It's very easy to replace. Good luck.

I dont really have a shop or the tools to do much of anything for the car. I was just hoping it was something that fell out and I could stick it back in. My friends father owns a shop and I am bringing the car by on Sat to fix my axle so I might as well have him to it as well. I just wanted to know how bad it is that I am still driving it like this.

___________________
Electronic Night Life
<3

my suggestion goto a garage instead of asking trance addicts questions about cars :O

___________________

The O2 sensor tells your car how rich or lean to run your mixture. Constantly driving it with no 02 will usually result in decreased responsiveness and a messed up gas consumption ratio. Lots of times the ECU has to be remapped because it gets so messed up. Good thing is that when you fix it the ECU does eventually relearn to drive normally. i like ECU flashes though.

All in all, dont worry about it, theyll fix it. and if you take the advice and swap in your own 02, itll fix itself eventually as well. Id let pros do it though, cuz they usually run a diagnostic to make sure nothing else is wrong because of that.

Yeah like the guy above me said, the O2 censor basicly tells the car how much gas to throw at itself. Without one you're either running very rich (not so much a bad thing) or very lean (can cause your engine to die due to not enough gasoline going through it). An O2 censor is very easy to fix, and also pretty damn cheap (all of $45-$60). If it's the one on your header/cat pop the hood and take off your heat shield if you have one, or if it's in the way of getting at the censor. Screw it back in, and becareful not to crush it if you're using a tool! Basicly for my 240SX (I'm RWD so it's a bit easier to get at things under the hood sometimes!) it's right on the right side of the engine bay nice and easy to get at, when the heat sheild was still on my header I was even still able to get at it. Honestly it should be a pretty damn easy fix for you. Although before driving your car much, make sure it's running rich rather than lean. If you can smell gasoline, see alot of smoke comming from the exhaust, or see gasoline comming out of your exhaust, you're running a rich. If you see/smell none of these, you're most likely running lean! By the way, what type of car is this

yup you'll need the ecu reflashed and probably a new o2 sensor. the o2 sensor you should be able to replace by yourself, if i remember correctly its pnp. orbax is right the ecu will relearn itself once the o2 sensor is back in, but you will notice a significant bog period...your a/f ratio will vary. use ur tripometer to gauge the gas consumption and run it against the factory mpg per tank!

___________________
I PUT TRADEMARKS AROUND YO MOTHAFUCKIN EYE
JUST ME N YOU

It's been said before and I'll say it again. You can do the o2 sensor (or Lambda sensor as it's referred to on many import vehicles) yourself, but if you do, do NOT touch the tip that goes into the exhaust stream. As this gets oils from your fingers onto a very sensitive part of the part. Put anti-sieze on the threads, that should come with the sensor.

And a brief but accurate definition of what the o2 sensor does:
Oxygen sensors produce an amount of voltage based on the amount of oxygen in the exhaust. Large amounts of oxygen result from very lean mixtures and result in low voltage output from the o2 sensor. Rich mixtures release lower amounts of oxygen into the exhaust, therefor the o2 sensor voltage is high.

The rearward o2 sensor measures Catalytic converter efficiency. By testing the oxygen levels before *coming out of the engine* and after the cat *before the muffler* you can see how well your emissions control devices are working. The o2 sensor wil vary between rich and lean mixture to give your engine it's highest fuel economy, best performance, and cleanest burning possible.



If the rear sensor is out, your car is not able to correctly adjust for the engines circumstances and i gaurantee the check engine light has a code for the downstream o2 sensor failure.

Just have your dad's friend install the new one, it's quick and cheap. He'll also look to see if there is a reason why it fell out, and fix that if necessary.

___________________
Maynard James Keenan:
Like hearing my grandmother, talk to her dog that way -- "Ooo
-- puppy!" and I said I'd never do that, ever! And now I have two
dogs and I talk like an imbecile! I wander around, "Ooo! You want
food!" I've turned into a f*cking moron.